The Evolution(?) of Sherlock Holmes: Darker Is Better?

We have four Sherlock’s right now in popular media. Starting with Sherlock Holmes created and written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, next there is Robert Downy Jr’s Sherlock Holmes, followed by Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock & finally Jonny Lee Miller’s Elementary Sherlock Holmes.

Out of 56 short stories and 4 novels, plus 2 hit films, along with the BBC breakout hit Sherlock and the new Elementary  show there are a lot of Holmes to choose from. But which one has it right?

Let’s look at the personalities of the three main tv/film Holmes and compare them to the Holmes we have in the original stories. Popular media has a trend to want to make everything ‘darker’. Most people who saw the latest Batman trilogy by Chris Nolan or CW’s Arrow will know what I mean. When you hear filmmakers talk about upcoming films or tv shows everything revolves around ‘this is going a lot darker then before, it’s going to be grittier, it’s going to be edgier’. This mentality leads to such garbage as twilight – a ‘dark’ love story or Pride and Prejudice Zombies, taking a classic story and warping it into to some dark horror tale – as if the original story wasn’t horrifically boring enough? (Sorry not a fan!). Well this idea that everything has to be darker has, in my opinion, gone overboard. There are dark stories sure, so tell them. But not every story has to retold in a dark style.

A great point in case is the ‘evolution?’ of Sherlock Holmes.

In the books we find that Holmes, himself, is a brilliant scientifically minded person. He is a logical machine, a master at reading people, and brilliant deducer. He lives at 221b Baker Street, has one brother who works for the government and has one (current) close friend in Dr John H. Watson. We know that Holmes is called up by Scotland Yard to aid in solving unique and difficult cases as well as having clients call in upon him at his home for advice and services. We also know that Holmes is highly respected by Scotland Yard and by many other people throughout the world. We know that Holmes can be erratic and brash, but he can also be kind and gentle.

The WB films keep close to the basic outline of  who and what Holmes and Watson should be. Where they differ is that they put a bit more emphasis on Holmes’s ability to fight, having him use methods of deduction to deduce his opponents moves in order to out smart them. I think it was a very clever way to introduce a more ‘action’ styled Holmes while also being able to see his brilliant mind at work. Another difference is that there is more effort to be witty. Lots of banter, that isn’t entirely unrealistic. This change isn’t a complete turn from the books either. There are many comedic moments in Doyle’s writing, think Red-Headed League for example. We also have a slight change in the relationship between Holmes and Watson. Where as in the books Watson is almost like a puppy following Holmes, in the films they make their partnership a bit more realistic in that Watson can, at times, get annoyed with Holmes’s antics while at the same time being very eager to help Holmes on a case for the rush of it. But finally the biggest difference in the films is that they do not adhere to the chronology of the canon, even though the canon doesn’t always flow along with itself. The films are their own ‘universe’, as it were, and edge a little bit on the steampunk side. Is this a bad thing? Absolutely not. The films did a great job at recreating Doyle’s world and, with a bit of a modern filmmaking, helped to breath new life into the franchise.

The BBC series went an entirely different route than the films, almost. They took on the challenge, like so many before them, at modernising Holmes. Putting Sherlock and John in the 21st century. I rolled my eyes at first when I heard of this show; solely for the reason that I love the Victorian Era setting for Holmes. Though upon watching the series in 2010 I was pleasantly surprised that it did more then just modernise Holmes. Actually they didn’t modernise him, as a person, hardly at all. They, too, kept to the classic formula for Holmes and Watson found within the works of Conan Doyle. They brilliantly transplanted the Victorian Holmes and Watson and set the stories in modern 21st Century London. Much like the WB films the BBC also play on the Holmes/Watson comedic relationship, having John get incredibly annoyed at some of Holmes’s behaviours while at the same time longing for the action and rush that comes from each case. Much like the books Holmes’s sole friend is found in John Watson and no one else. Some of the biggest differences come from the strong emphasis on the Sherlock/Mycroft strained relationship, a lady at Bart’s (Molly) who is infatuated with Sherlock and a more personable relationship with Mrs Hudson and Lestrade, but also there being a bit of uncertainty about Sherlock from some of the Scotland Yard officers, which isn’t entirely un-canonical. And of course the disregarding of Moriarty being an old professor and solely being a ‘consulting criminal’; the polar opposite of Sherlock. However, these changes and emphasises are welcomed for this new environment. This Sherlock is perhaps slightly more of a recluse then we’ve previously seen, but he’s still very much the controlled, logically minded, problem solving, machine we know Sherlock to be. The BBC show, like the WB films, helped to bring even more life to the franchise.

Finally we come to the CBS show, Elementary. Here we have another modernisation of Sherlock Holmes. With one key difference. Everything is different or ‘New’. Holmes is in New York, he’s a recovering drug addict, he sleeps with prostitutes, and his is forced to have a sober companion in the from of Dr Joan Watson. We have no 221b, no Mycroft, but an ominous father who is controlling Holmes from behind some mystic veil. There is no Lestrade but an American Inspector Gregson and a Detective Bell, paying homage to Professor Bell who Sherlock Holmes based off. We have a Holmes who is smart, yes, studies bees like in the books (how he can have a hive of bees in NYC is yet to be explained), has family, aka daddy, issues, but crucially we now have a Holmes who is damaged, Covered in tattoos, has anger problems, let’s his emotions rule him at times, indulges in acts that are not relevant nor resemble the classic character whatsoever and is just all around messed up. All we really have in Elementary is a decently smart, drug addict recoverer, who is consulted by NYPD to help solve average crimes that come their way on a daily basis. Everything that Sherlock Holmes was, is gone in this new ‘imagination’ apart from being clever-ish.

Now you can see from just over the course of 3 three portrayals in 3 years how Holmes went from first being seen on screen as a brilliant, sometime reclusive, detective with a witty/honest friendship with Dr Watson to then being zapped into modern London with a bit more of the loner attitude but still finding real friendship in one person, John Watson, yet also having connections with a host of ‘acquaintances’ to suddenly being whirled across the pond to NYC where he is a drug addicted, prostitute hiring, emotional reck of a human being who has no friends nor does he find real friendship in Watson, but instead is forced to work with her due to his recovery from drugs.

A lot of people enjoy the ‘reclusiveness’ of Sherlock Holmes and due to popularity of the films and tv shows this aspect of his personality has suddenly become one of his main attributes. Leading to the idea that Holmes cares only about the work, the crimes, the puzzles and nothing more. That he doesn’t have any emotions whatsoever for any of the other human beings around him. It’s true that the work, the crimes, and the puzzles drive Holmes and he is reclusive at times, however, I wouldn’t consider Holmes to be a ‘loner’ at least not in the way he has been made out to be, especially in CBS’s Elementary.

In the books we know Right from the start, when Stamford tells Watson about Holmes, that it’s evident that Holmes is not a man with close friends – though he’s not a complete misanthropist:

“A medical student, I suppose?” said I.

“No — I have no idea what he intends to go in for. I believe he is well up in anatomy, and he is a first-class chemist; but, as far as I know, he has never taken out any systematic medical classes. His studies are very desultory and eccentric, but he has amassed a lot of out-of-the-way knowledge which would astonish his professors.”

“Did you never ask him what he was going in for?” I asked.

“No; he is not a man that it is easy to draw out, though he can be communicative enough when the fancy seizes him.”

Holmes tells Watson of his student days in “The Gloria Scott”, we find:

“You never heard me talk of Victor Trevor?” he asked. “He was the only friend I made during the two years I was at college. I was never a very sociable fellow, Watson, always rather fond of moping in my rooms and working out my own little methods of thought, so that I never mixed much with the men of my year. Bar fencing and boxing I had few athletic tastes, and then my line of study was quite distinct from that of the other fellows, so that we had no points of contact at all. Trevor was the only man I knew, and that only through the accident of his bull terrier freezing on to my ankle one morning as I went down to chapel.”

In the Red Circle we even see Holmes physically comforting a woman. (gasp!!)

Holmes leaned forward and laid his long, thin fingers upon the woman’s shoulder. He had an almost hypnotic power of soothing when he wished. The scared look faded from her eyes, and her agitated features soothed into the usual commonplace.

What we have here is this: A brilliant guy who is a more “socially awkward” person rather than some withdrawn damaged human being. I do not deny that Holmes is reclusive – a lot of brilliant people come across that way. Holmes reasons for his seclusion tend to come from the fact that he was so encompassed in his research that he found little use for anything outside of his work. And as we know there were not many people in his line of study! But, nevertheless, Holmes must be a personable person who can thrive, in some capacity within large social circles, or his fame would be largely negative rather than positive. You cannot have Sherlock Holmes as a damaged human being and void of friendship/acquaintance!

Why?

Because it simply doesn’t work. He has to be on some level very sociable or he would not be able to succeed in his profession. His work alone puts him in contact with many different people from all over the world dealing with sensitive, personal, and emotional cases. That doesn’t sound like the type of work for a guy who is entirely anti-social; as some would lead you to believe. Doyle’s works, WB and BBC all feature his ‘ignorance’ and ‘lack’ of sensitivity but that is mainly done for entertainment purposes and laughs. The Holmes we find in the books is always well aware of sensitivity, though that doesn’t mean he doesn’t push the bounds for his own purposes.

The WB and BBC have done a great job a presenting a familiar character in a way that is fresh while also playing with other aspects of his personality. CBS, however, have taken all the charm that is found in Sherlock and turned him into the shell of his former self. All for the purposes of seeing what they can do. But it’s also key to note that even fans of the BBC miss something very significant. Though Holmes is a portrayed more reclusively in that show than in the WB films you will noticed that Holmes does have a close nit of ‘acquaintances’ that surround him in John, Mrs Hudson, Molly, and Lestrade – Sherlock is most certainly not ‘alone’ or a ‘loner’ which has become an over exaggerated aspect of his personality. The need for our ‘heroes’ to be damaged and destroyed human beings is ever growing and ever annoying. And this aspect of the modern Sherlock Holmes is solely exaggerated because of current media trends which say,  Darker is better . . . but sometimes it’s really not!

November 12, 2012 | Categories: Books, Sherlock Holmes, TV/FILM, Uncategorized | Tags: A study in scarlet, bbc sherlock, Benedict Cumberbatch, classic literature, compare, dark stories, Doctor Watson, Elementary, film, Joan Watson, Johnny Lee Miller, Jude Law, Lucy Liu, Martian Freeman, media, Modern London, New York, review, Robert Downy Jr, SHERLOCK HOLMES, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sydney Padgett, The Gloria Scott, The Red Circle, tv, Victorian London | 11 Comments »